IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT
by Amandah Leigh
Summary: When her future mother-in-law convinces her to sign up for a charity cooking competition, Hermione thinks it's a chance to do some good for the greater wizarding community while showing off her newly developed skills in the kitchen. But when sabotage turns the contest lemon-sour, will Hermione be the one to take the heat? And what's Narcissa REALLY cooking up, anyway? DRAMIONE HGDM


**Summary/Info**

When her future mother-in-law convinces her to sign up for a charity cooking competition, Hermione thinks it's a chance to do some good for the greater wizarding community while showing off her newly developed skills in the kitchen, but when sabotage turns the contest lemon-sour, will Hermione be the one to take the heat? And what's Narcissa _really_ cooking up, anyway? DRAMIONE

Rated T

Humor/Romance

Primary Pairing: Dramione (Draco/Hermione)

Secondary Pairings: Lucissa (Lucius/Narcissa) | Harry/Ginny | Molly/Arthur | Tonks/Snape | Ron/Astoria

Canon Deviations: Severus Snape and Nymphadora Tonks both survived the Final Battle. All other canon deaths apply.

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 **"IF YOU CAN'T STAND THE HEAT..."**

 **CHAPTER ONE**

FRIENDLY COOKING COMPETITION GOES SOUR

SABOTAGE AT CIRCE'S SPIT-ROAST

by Rita Skeeter

 _Hermione Granger, 29, was the very centre of controversy during Sunday's competition at Circe's Spit-Roast, the new, semi-upscale Greek eatery located in Hogsmeade. The establishment is but a Remembrall's throw from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where Granger, former Gryffindor and long-deemed the 'brains' of the Harry Potter-led Golden Trio, has recently accepted a teaching position. She will be taking over for Fillius Flitwick, who is retiring from his position as Charms instructor._

 _The cooking contest was designed to give local amateur chefs the chance to get their special entre on the menu for one night while raising money for charity, but it seems old rivalries die harder than Granger would have us believe, despite her engagement to none other than flaxen-haired golden boy and former pureblood Supremacist Draco Malfoy, 28._

 _Though Granger, as bushy-haired, swotty, and easy to anger as she was in her own school days, claims she has no idea who cause the explosion that rocked the small restaurant, our sources tell us..._

Hermione read the rest of the rubbish article without pause, lowered the Daily Prophet, and glared at her fiance over the top.

"Their sources? Ten galleons says their only source is your mother."

Draco lowered his own section of the paper (sports - the next Quidditch World Cup was coming up) and regarded Hermione with a look of infuriating bemusement.

"Hm?"

"Haven't you been listening to me?"

"Err..." He glanced down at the sports section's biggest headline - BULGARIA ADVANCES - then back up at his soon-to-be-wife. Was he listening? Of course not. Was he going to tell her the truth about whether he was listening? Of course not.

"Draco! Have you been listening to me?"

"Er... Yes?"

"You have not!" She let out a grunt of frustration. It was Monday morning, the competition had been held on Saturday, and Hermione wasn't surprised to find herself the subject of the morning's biggest story, though she didn't have to like it.

"Read this!" She tossed the paper in his direction. It nearly landed in his eggs, but having the swift reflexes of a former Seeker, he caught it just before. He quickly scanned the article in its entirety.

"Oh, it's about... that."

"Yes, that! Look what they're saying about me!"

"Rita Skeeter-"

"Is a boil on the bum of journalism, yes, but her source-"

Draco quickly cut her off, vehemently shaking his head. "No. No, certainly not. You can't truly think _Mother_ told them anything! Why would she say..." He read directly from the article. "Hermione Granger had more reason than anyone to cheat at starters."

"I think _your mother_ had more reason than anyone to tell them I cheated at starters!" Her eyes were as wild as her hair and her face was quickly turning as purple as her pajamas. "I did not cheat at starters and she bloody well knows it! I won that round fair and square! She's a sore loser, an entitled overgrown child with a superiority complex that-"

Draco shook his head again, this time stifling a chuckle.

"Hermione, please. Mother adores you! You know as well as I do that she cannot wait for us to be married."

"No, she cannot wait for us to produce grandchildren." Hermione reached for the paper, which she crumpled into a ball and tossed toward the rubbish bin. It fell short. Draco returned to his breakfast. Her own eggs were going cold but she couldn't care less, considering.

"Your mother wants grandchildren, not a daughter-in-law. There's a difference."

"She wants both. She told you she never had a daughter-"

"And she doesn't want one now!" While Hermione loved that her love loved his mother, she couldn't help thinking that he loved her a little too much at times, and the two held onto a certain loyalty to each other that Hermione found almost disturbing. Draco was still very much Narcissa's baby despite creeping close to thirty, and in his eyes she could do no wrong, not ever, not even when an avalanche of evidence to the contrary was literally burying him up to his eyes. (He still refused to believe she was the one who sent to Hermione's last job a box of Muggle and wizarding magazine articles about the dangers of waiting until thirty to conceive for the first time. It arrived _two days_ after they announced their engagement. Sent anonymously, delivered by an unfamiliar owl.)

Not that Hermione thought Narcissa Malfoy was a terrible person. She rather liked the woman, for the most part, and she appreciated that Narcissa had convinced Lucius to come around on their relationship, as it had been important to Draco to have the approval of both his parents. But Hermione didn't need Legilimency to know the woman pictured her pregnant every time they saw each other, and was perturbed to learn she'd accepted a teaching position.

 _"Is she going to have my grandbabies living in that drafty castle surrounded by rotten teenagers?" Narcissa had asked Draco upon hearing the news. "Am I going to have to visit them in the Great Hall, watch them climb trees in the Forbidden Forest, snuggle them in the library, and spend half my life worrying about them losing limbs should they crawl too close to one of that half-giant's mangy creatures?"_

 _"We're going to wait awhile before having children, Mother," Draco had replied. "Four of five years." Sensing her next question, he added, "And then we want only one, two at absolute most, so we're not worried about the danger of waiting until we're in our mid-thirties to start. It isn't as if we're planning for an entire Weasley clan, spaced out over a decade or more."_

 _"Five years? And only two? Draco Lucius Malfoy, I did not carry you inside me for forty-one straight weeks, I did not labor with you for three straight days, I did not nurse you for twenty-six straight months, so that you could wait five bloody years after getting married and then only have a child or two at absolute most!"_

 _Narcissa was not quiet about the fact that she'd wanted more children, but Draco's difficult birth had robbed her of the ability._

 _"I couldn't give you siblings because you nearly killed me, and you can't even repay me by-"_

"She did it!" Hermione picked up her empty juice glass and set it down again, harder than necessary. "Who else would want to shake the public's trust in me but a woman who doesn't want me to take that teaching position? She's hoping McGonagall will rescind the offer, we'll get married in August as planned, and by this time next year I'll be up to my elbows in nappies!"

"Mother isn't vindictive or manipulative like that," Draco said, but Hermione could tell even he didn't believe his words. Still, he doubled-down. "She would never, and it's offensive that you would suggest she would! Mother wanted that contest to go off without a hitch, that's why she suggested it to Toula Trantalis in the first place. She wanted to raise funds for a good cause and demonstrate her own vastly improved cooking skills. She would never sabotage her own function!"

"Well someone sabotaged it," said Hermione. She lifted her fork and stabbed it violently into her sausage, which made Draco cringe (subconsciously thinking of his own sausage, no doubt). "Someone sabotaged the bloody thing, someone caused that explosion, and someone spoke to the Prophet. And when I find out who that someone is..."

The small fat sausage on her plate burst into flames.

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 **A/N:**

This was supposed to be a one-shot with a flashback to the disastrous cooking contest in the middle, but I've decided it's going to be a short fic instead because I was having too much fun. So you can expect five chapters, a little humor, a little romance, and a very, _very_ little mystery. Inspired by my love of Hell's Kitchen and Masterchef Junior and my attempts to turn myself into a decent cook.

Hope you enjoy!

 **-AL**


End file.
